


Sunken Promises

by Myatsume



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Original Character(s), Original work - Freeform, Reader-Insert, Romance, wwyff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-12 01:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10479048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myatsume/pseuds/Myatsume
Summary: You were getting tired of your life in a small fishing village, but this wasn't the action you had dreamed of!





	1. Chapter 1: Fish, Fish, and More Fish

**Author's Note:**

> This has been something I've been working on and off on and finally decided to upload it! The first 2 OCs are introduced in this chapter, but the last one should be introduced soon!

Fish of all colors floated by you as you swam through crystal water. Wanting to touch them, you reached a hand out, but they swam away from you. Just as you were reaching towards them again, you were shocked awake.

Opening your eyes, you awoke, stretching your limbs and rising out of bed to shut off your blaring alarm clock.

Looking at the time on the clock, you deemed that it was a good time to get up. Turning so your legs were hanging off the side of the bed, you got up and made your way over to your closet.

Once you changed out of your bed clothes, you went to go wake up your Uncle, who was likely still asleep.

Rapping your knuckles on his door, you heard shuffling noises and a low grunt of “ _what_ ” coming from inside the room.

“It’s ten already, Uncle!” you called out to his closed door.

After you got another grunt in reply, you walked off to find breakfast.

Living in a large fishing village had its perks, although you were a bit tired of having some variant of fish for every meal.

There were a few large fish exporters in town, as there was always a lot of fish all throughout the year.

There had been a time when fish were sparse, but a few years after you were born the fish population spiked, and ever since then, there were always plenty to catch, keeping the town’s economy thriving.

Your uncle was the biggest fish exporter in town, which had transformed your lives from the poor house to vast riches.

You had never known your parents. Your uncle had told you that they died in a fishing accident, but would never tell you any more than that. Long ago you figured it was a sore spot for him and decided not to press him on it.

Your life had been full of everything you could ever want, but it felt a little empty not knowing anything about where you came from.

Seeing nothing but fish and fruit in the pantry, you decided to go to the bakery for some bread. Taking some money from a jar behind a lamp in your room, you made your way out of the house and onto the street.

The bakery was fairly close to your house (which was more of a mansion), and so it only took you a few minutes to get there.

The bell above the door rung as you entered, alerting the people inside to your arrival.

The bakery was always pretty full because it was one of the only bakeries in the primarily fishing town, but there was another reason you could think of as well for its popularity…

“Hey, (Name)!”

You turned your head to face the person who called out to you.

“Morning, Hayden!”

Hayden, wearing an apron, was behind the counter, serving the many customers.

Hayden was a little older than you, with bright green eyes and soft brown hair that normally came to his collar, but was tied back in a tiny ponytail today because he was working.

Hayden had been an apprentice to the town’s baker for some time, and although you weren’t sure if he had noticed, there were always quite a few girls in the bakery at most times when he was working, trying to catch his attention.

He had always been popular with the girls because he was so nice to them, not to mention he was in no shortage of good looks. This was only to be added to the girls’ excitement by the fact that he had an identical twin brother.

Once the morning crowd around Hayden thinned out a bit, you walked over to the counter.

“So, how is Arie doing?”

Hayden’s identical twin brother Arie was easy to tell apart from Hayden because although they had the same green eyes, Arie cut his hair shorter, unlike Hayden, who just let his grow. Arie and Hayden’s father was a fisherman who worked with your Uncle, so you had known both boys growing up. Unlike Hayden, Arie worked with his father on the fishing boats.

“He’s good, still catching as many fish as ever,” Hayden replied with an eye roll.

You laughed as he readied your usual order without even having to ask you what you wanted.

With your tiredness of eating fish, you ended up in the bakery a lot, though it was hard to fight through the crowds of girls sometimes.

“Are you going to the party tonight?” you asked Hayden, leaning on the counter.

It was almost prime fishing season, and your uncle always threw a big party on the beach to celebrate. The parties were practically a tradition now, with most of the town showing up to celebrate the highest money-making season of the year.

“I guess,” Hayden said with a small grin, handing you a bag with your usual baked goods in it. “I don’t think my dad would let me miss it.”

You hummed in agreement, taking your order. “I’ll see you then!”

Hayden looked like he wanted you to stay and talk more, but you simply waved at him as you left. As soon as you vacated your spot, two more girls came to fill it, immediately chatting Hayden up.

You liked talking to Hayden, but preferred to do so when all the girls who liked him weren’t around to glare at you. You could recount too many different bruises from girls quite literally shoving you out of the way to get to Hayden, which hadn’t worked out well for them if Hayden noticed, but at the same time you didn’t want to cost your friend customers just because you wanted to have a chat with him.

You had barely left the bakery when you bumped, quite literally, into Arie.

“Oh, Arie!” you exclaimed, a bit too loud for your liking.

“I was looking for you,” he said. “I have to speak to your uncle, but he wasn’t answering the door, so I came to find you.”

“Oh,” you replied. “He probably went back to sleep. I’ll go get him up for you.”

“I’ll come with,” Arie said. “I have nothing else to do right now anyways.”

“I thought you were on that boat all the time!” you teased.

“My dad needs a part your uncle said he had.” Arie replied.

Your brows furrowed at your failed attempt at a joke. The two brothers were very fun to be around when they were little, but Arie had grown up to be so serious…

Arriving back, you unlocked the front door and both of you entered, not seeing any sign of your uncle since he was probably still in bed. “ _Lazy bum_ ,” you muttered lowly.

Sighing, you turned back to Arie, who was standing silently, staring ahead. “Wait here, I’ll go get him.”

You made your way up to your Uncle’s room. Knocking on the door, you listened for a response. When you got none, you decided to just go in.

Walking in, you found your Uncle thrashing around in his bed, muttering in his sleep. Furrowing your brow, you walked over, intent on waking him up from whatever nightmare he was having. Served him right for trying to sleep in again!

“No… no… no!” With that last ‘no’, he bolted up, startling you.

His groggy eyes found yours and he slowly began to regain his composure.

Still confused, you told him Arie said he needed some part from him.

“Yes, yes, of course…” your Uncle muttered, getting out of bed.

“I’ll just go downstairs,” you said, leaving your Uncle alone in his room.

Closing the door to his room behind you, you slowly walked back downstairs, confused about your uncle’s weird behavior. You had never known him to have trouble sleeping or nightmares, but he may have just never mentioned it to you. Maybe he was nervous for the big fishing season or something?

“He’ll be down in a minute,” you told Arie. “He was having some sort of bad dream.”

For the first time you had seen in a while, Arie’s expression softened. “I remember another person who had trouble with that,” he said.

“Arie…” you protested, but he continued.

“I remember when we were little and you went missing at night and we found you sleepwalking, carrying frogs around in the yard.”

“Hey! I thought I told you not to mention that anymore!” you complained, not so secretly happy that you had a moment with the old Arie.

It was then that your Uncle came down the stairs, carrying some sort of metal thing in his hands. Tossing it to Arie, he made his way over to the kitchen.

“Is Arn finished catching the clams for tonight’s party?” he called out to Arie from the kitchen.

“Yes, we finished last night. Dad needed this so we would be ready for the start of the prime season.”

“Oh, yeah,” your Uncle replied. “I’ll see you and your family there tonight?”

“Yes, sir,” Arie replied.

You wanted to invite Arie to stay longer, but he said he still had things to do and promptly excused himself. You sighed, watching Arie’s figure until he was out of sight.

“That boy just can’t relax,” your Uncle said. “Though I was just like him when I was still on the boats.”

You laughed politely. Your Uncle was a fisherman before the fish boom came, and as soon as he had fully established his fish empire after the boom, he suffered a minor injury and retired from the boats, but still managed the business side.

“Is everything ready for the party?” you asked, taking the bread out of the bag you carried it in.

“As far as I know,” he answered.

“Maybe I should bring my swimsuit…” you said, and your Uncle turned to stare at you.

“I’m too old for swimming in that ocean,” he said, maybe a bit too quickly, only shaking his head when you gave him an odd look.

When your Uncle finished assembling his breakfast, he made his way upstairs.

Making your own breakfast, you sat at the table and ate, then made your way back upstairs to kill some time before the party on the beach.

One look through your closet told you that you should probably get a new swimsuit. You hadn’t been swimming in a while since it had been too cold, and were pretty sure you had outgrown all the ones you had left in your closet.

Taking more money from your stash and telling your Uncle that you would be out for a while, you left to get a swimsuit for the party.

Being pretty much a beach town, there were plenty of places to get swimsuits.

You already had a good idea what place to go to though. Since you were a kid, your Uncle always brought you to one of the popular tourist places that had an arcade and little shell souvenirs, but also had a surprisingly good swimsuit selection. 

With a last glance of your room, deciding that you should probably clean it before the growing pile of clothes in your laundry basket became sentient, you headed out.

Straightening your light dress over your swimsuit, you put the final touches on your hair before leaving your room to go to the party with your Uncle.

As soon as you arrived at the beach, your Uncle was immediately greeted by many of the people who were already there. It was another five minutes until everyone had finished coming up to greet your uncle and you were able to continue onto the beach. When you made your way to the sand, your Uncle stayed on the grass, just on the edge of the sandy beach.

“It’s too hot to be on the sand today. I’m going to stay here on the grass,” he said gruffly. “Go have fun,” he urged you after your protests, insisting that he come have fun with you.

“Okay…” you replied skeptically, not sure what your Uncle was being so weird about lately.

You were then distracted by Hayden’s approaching form. “Looks like you guys finally showed up,” he said, smiling at you before turning to your uncle with a hand up in greeting.

You couldn’t help but take in his appearance; he was wearing his usual blue swim trunks with no shirt, probably due to the heat. You also couldn’t help but notice a few girls looking his way. You shook your head a bit, getting your thoughts together enough to reply to him. “Yeah, though Uncle’s staying off the beach tonight.”

“Well you can have fun in his place, then!” Hayden said, grabbing your hand. “Come on, I actually got Arie to agree to play ball with us!”

You smiled, following him over to his brother and a few others who were waiting around, one of which was holding a volleyball.

Before you got there, Hayden and Arie’s dad, Arn, came strolling over to your group. “Alright kids, we’ve had a minor jellyfish problem lately, so try to stay out of the water for today.”

“Alright, dad,” Hayden said, to the dismay of other members of the group as some of the them groaned at the news.

“I won’t get to put my new swimsuit to use?” One of the girls complained after Arn left, hanging close to Hayden.

“Yeah! It’s way too hot out!” Another girl said, pulling off her shirt to reveal something that could barely be called a bathing suit top. “We wanna swim!” the girl added, really dragging out the end of her sentence.

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at the girls. _They’re really getting their flirt on this year…_

Well, Hayden was already surrounded, but where was Arie? Looking around, you confirmed that Arie had some girls around him too, though he was more successful at keeping them at bay than Hayden typically was.

The girls kept up their flirting for a few more minutes before Hayden grabbed a volleyball from one of the girls. “Everyone ready to play?” he asked, much to the relief of you and some of the boys who were likely crushing on some of the girls who had been practically hanging on the twins.

The group split into two teams for the game. Hayden tried to recruit you and Arie for his team, but the others complained about it being unfair for both of the twins to be on one team, so they dragged Hayden onto their team, leaving you and Arie with the others on your team.

Getting into position, you were nervous since you weren’t very good at the game, but as it went on, you ended up having fun, with Arie’s quick reflexes saving the team more than a few times.

After a particularly nasty spike from Hayden, the ball soared over your outreached arms and landed a few feet out into the water.

“I’ll get it!” you said, jogging over to the water.

“But, (Name), the jellyfish-” Hayden protested.

“It’s okay, it was my fault that it got out there since I missed it,” you replied, making your way through the water. If you were only in the water for a few seconds, then jellyfish wouldn’t likely be an issue. Hayden was such a worrier.

The water was around four feet deep as you finally reached the ball in the water. The jellyfish issue was worrying, but at the same time, the water really cooled you down.

As you went to grab it, you were annoyed by a wave moving the ball out of your reach. When you followed its path to a point beyond your being able to touch the sand with your toes, you were startled by a man’s desperate screams coming from the shore.

You shocked for a second, body slightly rigid at the startling yell. Looking up, you saw your Uncle frantically running across the beach and towards where you were in the ocean. Furrowing your brow, you looked around you, _still_ not seeing any jellyfish. You didn’t see any rogue gangs of jellyfish around you, so why was he freaking out so much?

“Get out, (Name)! Hurry and get out!” he shouted, confusing everyone at the party, especially you. Hayden made his way over to your uncle, grabbing his arm and trying to calm him down.

“It’s okay!” you called back. “I don’t see any jellyfish around — ”

He cut you off by continuing to yell as he ran, breaking out of Hayden’s grasp. “You have to get out now or else the —”

The rest of his words were drowned out by a large whirlpool appearing around you.

Startled, you tried to get out of the whirlpool, but its pull was too strong. Your escape was further doomed by a large hand coming out of nowhere and tightly grasping your arm.

It felt like time had stopped at the moment when you looked up and saw a powerful, intimidating looking man… who had the lower half of a fish.

You froze, entranced into a stillness by his appearance until screams of your name broke you from your trance.

Your head snapped over and you saw your Uncle at the edge of the beach, as if his legs would not allow him a step further. Your eyes then turned at the sight of new motion; Hayden and Arie were rushing over desperately to the ocean to try and get to you.

Moving back further into the depths of the water and dragging you with him, the merman’s booming voice spoke, easily travelling across the densely populated beach.

“You have betrayed my trust and broken our agreement, Marcus.”

You were struggling as hard as you could, but were having a hard time breathing while being dragged further back into the water.

Hayden and Arie were in the water now, both swimming frantically towards you and calling your name.

“You thought that you could evade me if you stayed away from the water, but you were wrong. I will be taking your precious family as you have taken mine.” The merman boomed.

The last things you saw before you were dragged completely underwater were your Uncle, his head hanging low, and Arie, the stronger swimmer of the twins, closing in on you, his hand reaching out towards you.

…and then everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2: Underwater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally got another chapter done, and this one introduces the third of the three OCs!

Your head hurt. It felt like you hit your head hard on something, but that didn’t feel quite right to you.

Sitting up, you brushed your hair away from your face, only to feel a rough patch on your neck. Rubbing it again, it felt like you had rubbed a sharp stone on it.

Your next observation was that your hair was flowing all around your face. Reaching a hand up to your hair, you finally understood the situation. You gaped, realizing you were underwater and somehow not currently drowning. Was this a dream? Were you dead and in some weird underwater afterlife?

Another look around confirmed for you that you were not only underwater, but in a cage with intimidating bars, making you feel like a caged animal.

The room you were in was clearly a prison of some sorts – but it looked like what you thought the inside of a palace would. The walls looked to be carved out of marble, with gold embellishments everywhere you looked.

Your time to admire your prison was cut short abruptly when the doors swung open and snapped your mind back into the terrible reality you faced at that moment as your kidnapper swam smoothly into the room.

His long blonde hair flowed behind him elegantly, but your eyes stopped on his face. His blazing eyes were his most prominent feature, and seeing them clearly directed at you caused you to unconsciously wrap your arms around yourself as a shiver ran through your body.

You couldn’t tear your eyes away from him, partially in fear of what he would do if you took your eyes off of him. Taking a look at the rest of him, you noted a crown placed on his head, not dissimilar to king crowns you had seen in storybooks. His muscular torso was bare, and he had large gold gauntlets on both forearms, as well as a strong gold chain around his neck; it seemed this place had gold to spare, since it was everywhere. As if to outdo the rest of the gold on his body, his tail was a bright gold as well, scales shining with his every move, allowing no doubt that he was a person of regal stature, or at least very well-off, how merfolk measured that you had no idea.

He made his way through the room, only to stop a few feet in front of your cell.

“I’m sure you thought that mermen were a myth,” the large man began, continuing without a response from you. “That is because we do not associate with _your kind_.”

Making his way closer to your cage, he continued to talk. “Not usually, anyways. Quite a few years ago, we were approached with an offer. We were offered prosperity in return for compensation of our own. This human promised us that we would have our generosity returned within ten years, but his time has run out and he has ignored us.”

Your brows furrowed, the gears suddenly starting to turn in your head. Could it be…?

“As you are now realizing, _human_ , the man I speak of is your Uncle,” he hissed with distaste. “We warned him that if he did not repay us for the fish we gave him, we would take our payment in a more direct manner.”

So that explained the sudden fish boom all those years ago. Backing up in disbelief, you weren’t sure what to think.

The merman snarled, pacing around before grabbing the bars of your cell with his enraged fists. “That coward knew his time was running out, but _he_ stayed out of the water, so we took his precious niece as payment for his treachery.” 

The merman’s stern face then took on a smirk that immediately made your skin crawl. 

“I am sure you are wondering how you can breathe underwater. Well, you have my son to thank for that!” The man announced proudly, ushering forward a young merman who came into the room at his father’s call.

He looked up at his father nervously, and when he noticed your eyes on him, he turned his head away, slightly red in the face.

If he had not just told you, you never would have thought the scrawny boy in front of you was related in any way to the huge, muscled merman that was his father.

The boy was around your age and skinny, without any noticeable muscles, and had golden blonde hair that flowed around his face due to the water’s current. Unlike his father, he had no gold adorning himself, and had a tail that was light blue, not unlike his eyes. He was normal looking, albeit in a more nerdy fashion, but you had only a few seconds to look at him before his father brought your attention back to himself.

“My son Aelon is very gifted, and has developed a serum to turn human into merfolk. The serum takes a week to come to full effect, but I see your gills have developed nicely.”

Horrified, you finally understood what the rough patches on your neck were. The merman seemed to enjoy your terror, as his lips upturned in another cruel smile. “We have contacted your uncle and informed him that if he does not repay us within a week, you will stay here as a mermaid and serve us forever. Now we will see where that man’s true alliances lie; with his kin or his greed.”

 

“…and that is what happened.” Marcus finished as the twins listened with hardened expressions. Arie’s mouth formed a scowl, and Hayden’s brows knitted together, illustrating his worry.

Almost immediately after Marcus finished talking, a bottle broke the surface of the water near where he was standing.

Spotting it, Hayden rushed over and grabbed it, immediately opening it and pulling out the letter inside, eyes frantically scanning the words for any useful information.

Hayden’s heart dropped at the threat of you being trapped as a mermaid forever. Running back over to the shore, he handed the letter to his twin to read, before facing Marcus.

“They’re going to make her a slave if you don’t fix this!” Hayden practically growled. Arie, having also finished reading the letter, handed it to Marcus, his eyes showing his fury.

Marcus took the letter reluctantly and read it, posture visibly drooping as he read on. “I… I didn’t mean for her to get involved.”

“Why didn’t you tell her not to go in the water then?” Hayden demanded.

“I did tell her! I didn’t think she would! I didn’t want to involve her in my troubles!” Marcus insisted, clenching and unclenching his hands.

“Too late now,” Arie said, turning and walking away from his brother and Marcus.

“Where are you going?” Hayden called after him.

Arie turned only his head back to look at his brother. “Going to my boat. If this coward won’t save his own niece, I will.”

 

After the mermen left, you laid down in your cell, tears steadfastly coming from your eyes and merging with the water surrounding you.

Why you? Why hadn’t Uncle repaid his debt? Everything you knew about your Uncle seemed to be brought into question now.

Wiping your eyes, you came to the realization that Uncle might not be coming to save you. And with that grim truth unfolding before your eyes, you realized that if you were ever getting out of here, you would have to save yourself.

“I’m sorry.”

Your head snapped up at the sound of a timid voice, only to lock eyes with the scary merman’s son, who you thought had left with his father, but it seems he had come back.

You almost laughed; he looked more scared of you than you were of him in that moment, and you certainly had a lot more to be scared about. He was silent for a few seconds as you both regarded each other, and it looked like he was struggling to maintain eye contact as long as he had.

With a short glance around, he spoke up. “I never would have made that potion if I knew that this is what father intended to use it for,” he said sadly, looking at the floor.

“Why _did_ you make it then?” you pressed him, enjoying how flustered he was getting from just talking to you.

He squirmed in place a bit. “I’m not strong like my father, and I can’t fight like his warriors can. I like creating things, and potion-making is the only thing I’m good at. My father intends to make me king when he—”

“Wait!” you interrupted. “Your father is the _king_!? Where am I even?”

Your panicked questions surprised the boy, his eyes wide as he looked at you. “Oh, um,” he stumbled on his words, not expecting you to begin questioning him so fervently. “This is Anthelia, and my father is the king,” he said, before adding as an afterthought. “My name is Aelon.”

You gave him your name in return, glad that he was at least not the brute that his father is. He was much nicer, so maybe there was a chance that he could help you; it was worth a shot at least. “Is there any way you could help me? My Uncle and my friends will be so worried about me and I just want to get back to them.”

Aelon regarded you with a sad gaze. “I don’t think I’d be of any help,” he relayed. “My father doesn’t really listen to me, and this has been all he’s talked about for years. He would never forgive me for helping the relative of his greatest enemy.”

“But why would he help my Uncle to begin with? What could a human offer a merman?” you protested, hands grasping the bars of your cell as you pleaded with your eyes.

“All I’ve ever heard him say was that the man would give us prosperity,” Aelon replied, fiddling with his fingers. “He would never tell me what was promised.”

“Is there a library here? Can you find out?” your verbal assault paused for a second. “…do you even have libraries underwater?”

His taken aback look faded slightly into a small smile at your confusion. “I have never been to one of your libraries, but I’ve seen some of your world’s books in shipwrecks, so I can understand your confusion. We do have books of our own, but the materials we use for books are not the same as yours.”

Nodding, you decided to try one last time. “Could you try looking in the library for information? I don’t want to never see to my family again,” you pleaded. “I’ll do anything you want in return!”

His eyebrows shot up. “Anything?” he echoed, and at your nod of approval, he looked away awkwardly, color coming to his cheeks and creeping all the way up to the tips of his ears.

You narrowed your eyes; you knew he was shy, but what did he want from you that made him so embarrassed? You were about to open your mouth to tell him off for some assumedly dirty request, but he spoke up first.

“What’s it like to be a human?” he said, words spun together so quickly that you were barely able to catch what he said.

“What?” you barked in shock, staring at him like he had two heads.

He looked as startled as you at your reply, fidgeting with his hands. “Uh, I’ve never talked to a human before… I didn’t mean to…”

You almost felt bad for thinking he was some sort of pervert; it was obvious that the King hadn’t let Aelon have much of a social life, but he was certainly the friendliest person you had met so far in Anthelia.

“I’d think being a merman is much more interesting than my life! All I do is help Uncle around the house and hang out with my friends.”

“I’ve never really had any friends,” Aelon countered. “Father says that you can’t get respect as a ruler by having friends, so I spend most of my time in my room. Father got mad at me the last time I tried to have a conversation with a servant, so I stopped doing that too.” His sad eyes turned to yours, lips tilting down in a frown. “You’re the first one other than my father that I’ve been able to have a conversation with in so long.”

As if he knew he was being mentioned, a bellow of “Aelon!” rang through the hallway outside of your cell.

Aelon’s head darted back quickly, eyes lighting up in panic. “That’s, uh, I should go,” he said quickly, tongue wetting his lips nervously.

“But Aelon—” you reached a hand out towards him through the bars.

“I’ll look in the library and come back later. Until then, (Name).” And with that, he swam out of the room quickly, intent on finding his father before his father found him talking to the prisoner.

Sighing, you sunk back to the floor, hand coming to your newly-formed gills, hoping Aelon would find a way to help you, and soon. You laid down and closed your eyes, hoping to dream of anything happier than the situation you found yourself in.


End file.
